I was struck by an announcement from the World Bank about a book called Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant: Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond that they have co-authored with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

They are basically saying that if Sub-Saharan Africa can do in the vast Guinea Savannah zone what Brazil has done in the Cerrado and Thailand in its Northeast Region, it can vastly increase agricultural production.

Shown in yellow on the map, it is comparable in size to the EU, or half of Australia, Canada or the 48 States. Currently only about 10 per cent is used to grow crops. (source)

Agriculture has to expand dramatically if they are to become a net exporter of agricultural products while managing with a population that is expected to increase from 800 million to 1.5 billion before stabilizing later this century.

To me that looks like the need for a fivefold increase in output. There would have to be at least a two-fold increase in per capita food consumption if the people of the region are to chow down much like everyone else. Then they have to reverse their current position as a net importer.

Political and economic conditions will dictate the pace of this and other development in the continent. We can expect the greens and “NGOs” to run interference.

There is no free pdf version of the book. This is typical of the World Bank and UN agencies.

Watch out …. the invisible hand might get our precious Snugglepies…. or so they say….(creeping globalization and all that)

Ever wondered why it’s not possible to use a Kindle in Australia or why there is no branch of Amazon here? It’s because the Australian publishing industry is protected (it’s 70% foreign owned, anyhow … I’ll leave that to one side). It’s also why the books (especially non fiction and text books) cost so much here, relative to the rest of the world.

The restriction on “parallel book importing” is the mechanism which gives Australia based publishers an effective monopoly on the book market. In a nutshell, any book which is physically published here cannot be imported by local bookshops. This includes all books, not only those by Australian authors. So effectively, bookshops are not permitted to purchase books at the cheapest price possible, and of course this means that there is a severe lack of competition. (And in any case books published here will be more expensive to produce, simply because of smaller print runs).

Naturally the publishing industry is up in arms about it and has managed to recruit a slew of Australian authors to the cause. The line they’ve swallowed is that this will be the death of the Australian writer, our kids will never come across Snugglepot and Cuddlepie again, we’ll be swallowed up foreign culture, this is an attack by neo-liberal free-marketism on everything we hold dear.

In this time of great decision, I have come to Cairo not to talk about the past, but to look to the future — to a future that Egyptians can lead and can define.

Ladies and Gentlemen: In our world today, a growing number of men and women are securing their liberty. And as these people gain the power to choose, they are creating democratic governments in order to protect their natural rights. We should all look to a future when every government respects the will of its citizens — because the ideal of democracy is universal.

For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.

….. We know these advances will not come easily, or all at once. We know that different societies will find forms of democracy that work for them. When we talk about democracy, though, we are referring to governments that protect
certain basic rights for all their citizens — among these, the right to speak freely. The right to associate.
The right to worship as you wish. The freedom to educate your children — boys and girls. And freedom from the midnight knock of the secret police.

Securing these rights is the hope of every citizen, and the duty of every government. In my own country, the progress of democracy has been long and difficult. And given our history, the United States has no cause for false pride and we have every reason for humility.

After all, America was founded by individuals who knew that all human beings — and the governments they create — are inherently imperfect. And the United States was born half free and half slave. And it was only in my lifetime that my government guaranteed the right to vote for all of its people.

Obama’s speech was so much more..well, nuanced. Whereas Condi chose to focus on the struggle for democracy in the Middle East, Obama preferred to talk about “relationships”and in particular what he called “the tension between the USA and Muslims around the world”. What is central, according to Obama, is to understand difference, find what we share, discover our common humanity (etc etc..).

As I said in a previous post, I think that Obama will have to continue what the Bush regime started, no other policy would make any sense..The biggest sign of this was that he spoke quite firmly about the need for a Palestinian State, and was prepared to arouse the wrath of the most militant Zionists.

As Paul Kelly in The Australian points out this two yearly report will start to make government accountable by showing whether its policies are doing any good.

Noel Pearson has an interesting piece in the same publication. He says that government bureaucrats cannot be trusted to come up with decent policies. Watching them in action is a bit like watching Ground Hog Day. The leadership has to come from the indigenous community.

“Mr Rudd admitted the unavailability of reliable data meant he was unable to say whether his $4.6 billion Closing the Gap policy package was having any effect in lifting indigenous living standards in crucial areas such as health and education.”

I’ve been trying to figure out how things will go in the Middle East under Obama, and have half-written a post about his Cairo speech, which I hope to finish very soon…… meanwhile, I’ll post this…

My half-baked view (which I’ll expand upon in my future post) is that he knows that he has no choice but to continue what was begun under Bush. Nothing else would make any sense. I think the main clue to this was in his remarks about the necessity for a Palestinian State. He was more forceful than I’d expected about this.

However, the entire tone of his speech suggests that the Obama administration is utterly lily liver’d when it comes to fighting tyranny and propogating the democratic revolution. The bulk of what he said was just liberal waffle about ‘understanding difference’, ‘looking into our hearts’, ‘finding what we have in common’ etc etc. Relationship counselling stuff…

"The Holy Bible tells us "Blessed are the peacemakers…" ' (or was it 'cheesemakers')..

Senator Wong has provided a written answer to Senator Fielding’s three questions. It will be interesting to see what debate ensues. For climate skeptics, it should be a good test of their metal one way or the other.

A rejoinder from the scientists who accompanied Fielding to the recent meeting with Wong can be found here. A somewhat acrimonious exchange can be found at JoNova.